


Working Title

by allyndra



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-24
Updated: 2012-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-31 16:04:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyndra/pseuds/allyndra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt: Frank/Gerard - Hollywood AU (They're both out! Or one isn't out but falls for the one who is! Wackiness/soul-searching ensues! WHATEVER IT IS, THEY ARE ACTORS IN HOLLYWOOD)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Working Title

If they had met in a movie, there would have been a meet-cute where they bumped into each other in the studio hallway and dropped their scripts and then picked up the wrong ones. And then later, when they discovered their error, Gerard would have wrangled Frank's phone number from his agent and then blushingly called Frank to let him know. 

(That's how it would have gone if they had met in one of Frank's movies, anyway. If they'd met in one of Gerard's, they probably would have been on the run from a vampire cult. Which is a different kind of meet-cute altogether.)

Instead, they met at a table-read, and Gerard was so distracted he barely noticed that Frank was even there. 

"Ten pages," Gerard said into his phone.

"What the fuck, Gee?"

"Ten fucking pages of brooding. It's a new record." He slammed his script and notebook down onto the table and slumped into his chair.

Mikey sighed. He had really emotive sighs, expressing deep empathy and pain and shit. Gerard sometimes theorized that Mikey's sighs had evolved because his face was so fucking robotic that C-3PO was jealous. 

"Just, like, channel Bruce Wayne. You can do it."

"They'll be lucky if I don't channel Damian Wayne and vandalize the fucking writers' room," Gerard said. " _Ten pages._ " He glared randomly around the room, and then immediately felt guilty about subjecting his future castmates to that. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair and lowered his eyes so he was glaring at the fake wood grain of the table, which at least wouldn't hold a grudge through the shoot.

"I gotta go, Mikey," he muttered. "The director will be here in a minute to start the read."

"Yeah, okay," Mikey said. "Blow their minds."

Gerard hung up just as everyone around the table started sitting up straighter and shuffling more purposefully through their scripts. Right. He put his phone away and flipped open his script. Time to pretend to be a fucking professional. 

In all honesty, Gerard was pretty damned good at pretending to be a professional, so he was listening attentively and jotting notes ten minutes later as Bryan, the director, explained his Vision for the movie. So the folded square of paper dropping onto his notebook with a surreptitious _flick_ caught him completely off guard. He cut his eyes sideways at the guy sitting next to him, who was a half-familiar actor from a bunch of rom-coms. He was wearing glasses and looking all innocent and studious until Gerard caught his eye. Then he grinned, one of those smiles that was clearly supposed to look innocent but really just looked sneaky. 

Gerard raised his eyebrows and unfolded the paper. It was a little sketch - hardly more than a doodle - of a spiky-haired Robin beating the shit out of a typewriter with a crowbar. A speech bubble floated over his head, reading, "Who's brooding now, fuckers!" Gerard snorted out a laugh that he turned into a very, very unconvincing cough and tucked the drawing under his notebook. 

When they broke after act one, Gerard slid his fingers under his notebook and along the edge of the sketch. He twisted in his chair to face the guy next to him and said, "Hey. I'm Gerard."

The guy rolled his eyes, and Gerard couldn't help noticing what pretty eyes they were. 

"No shit," he said, "I'm Frank."

(So maybe it was a little bit like a meet-cute, after all.)

***

If it had been a movie, there would have been gobs of unresolved sexual tension and will-they-or-won't-they until finally one of them broke down and admitted his feelings. Possibly in the rain. 

(That is, if it had been one of Frank's movies. If it had been one of Gerard's, they would have had adrenaline-fueled sex while crammed into a tiny space, hiding from alien bounty hunters. Gerard wasn't sure which of those scenarios was more romantic.)

The way it actually happened was, they started talking at that first table read and never really stopped. Frank was easliy the most hilarious, inappropriate, rad guy Gerard had ever worked with. And he was openly jealous of Gerard's career. Gerard knew, because about two minutes after the table-read ended, Frank leaned back in his chair and said, "I'm so fucking jealous of your career, man."

Which Gerard could understand, because he had lucked into a whole series of awesome monster movies and only slightly lame scifi movies, while Frank had been doing fluffball romantic comedies pretty much forever. Their current film, which was a spy thriller, was totally breaking the mold for Frank, and even then, he was playing the cute and non-threatening tech guy. 

"But I mean," Frank said, waving a hand, "You take the best from what you get offered, right? If I waited around for Spielberg to come calling, I'd never work."

"I get that, yeah," Gerard said, gathering his stuff. "But you have to have passion and artistic integrity, or you might as well be bagging groceries." 

And that was a sign that Frank was Special and Different right there, because usually Gerard would get all tense after saying something like that, anxious about offending and mentally phrasing retractions. With Frank, though, he just waited for the laugh he knew was coming. 

Yeah, Frank was totally laughing. "Fuck you, I have artistic integrity coming out my ears," he said. "Just because I have to stand on boxes to look manly next to my co-stars doesn't mean I don't have passion for what I do. I would just like to have passion for what I do while interacting with some zombies."

"Zombies are overrated nowadays," Gerard said gravely. "Fucking CGI."

Frank raised his script in the air like he was making a toast. "Fucking CGI," he agreed. He looked around at the rapidly emptying room and said, "Hey, do you wanna go get a coffee?" When Gerard bit his lip and nodded, Frank added, "I should clarify, by _'Get a coffee,'_ I mean _'Go back to my place and make out.'_ " 

Gerard practically choked on a laugh. "Yeah," he said. "That actually sounds awesome."

They wound up getting coffee _and_ making out, which is how Gerard knew it was gonna be love. 

***

If it had been a movie, the whole thing about coming out would have been their big conflict. There would have been evil talent agents and management companies shoving them back in the closet and telling them they'd never work in this town again. It all would have been capped by some horrible (and easily avoidable) miscommunication that threatened their entire relationship. 

(That's how it would have gone in one of Frank's movies. If it had been one of Gerard's, the entire coming out process would have been about being a werewolf, not about being queer.)

They were curled up on the couch in Gerard's trailer in the third week of shooting when Frank brought it up. Gerard had a sketchbook on his knee, and Frank was reading through scripts with a highlighter in one hand and his glasses perched on his nose. It made him look so fucking adorable that Gerard totally understood why the entire nation was half in love with him. 

Frank flipped a page and then paused and looked up at Gerard, his face unusually serious. "I want to come out." He said it just straightforward like that, and Gerard blinked. He wished he could bite his nails. Fucking close-ups on his hands meant he had to keep them out of his mouth during filming. 

"Wow, I. Wow." Gerard settled back on the couch, tapping his pencil rapidly against his sketchbook. He tried to marshal his thoughts into a coherent order, but Frank was _looking_ at him, all open and earnest, so Gerard finally gave up and just started talking. 

"When I first started doing interviews - when reporters first started to notice me - I was with Lindsey," he said. "And whenever people asked about our relationship, I kind of wanted to make a point about how I was bi. Because, representation, you know? I wanted to be out there and visible and challenge the stereotypes."

Frank tucked his hair back behind his ear and nodded, and Gerard kept going. "But it's actually really awkward to work into conversation. _'Sure, I love my girlfriend, but under other circumstances, I'm totally into dick.'_ " He grimaced. "So I just didn't say anything about it, and it created this whole closet that I didn't even mean to be in."

Frank reached over and grabbed Gerard's pencil, which was tapping so hard it was leaving dark black marks on his paper now. "So is that a yes or a no?" he asked. He sounded calm, but Gerard could see how wide and dark his eyes were behind his glasses. 

"I … yes." Gerard didn't really have to think about it, despite the tension thrumming through his body. "I want to run the 'how to do it' part past my agent so I can still have a career afterward, and I want to give my parents and Mikey a heads up. But yes."

Okay, Gerard had definitely underestimated how worked up Frank had been under his illusion of calmness, because he practically sagged in relief. Like, almost melted into the couch cushions. And then he threw his script and highlighter and Gerard's pencil on the ground and launched himself onto Gerard's lap. 

The sketchbook was going to be a complete loss. 

(They wound up getting a whole slew of magazine covers, a devoted new following on Tumblr, and a series of boycotts by NOM and the Westboro Baptist Church. Even though it wasn't the major conflict of their story arc, there was enough drama that it would have made a decent climax to an act. Their _real_ major conflict was about how many dogs counted as too many and how clean the bathroom had to be to count as clean. But that wouldn't make for a very good script.)

***

If they'd been living out a movie, the ending would have been, well, an _ending._ Maybe it would have been a wedding, maybe it would have been a death, but either way, it would have been a tidy close to the story, followed by credits and a cover of a song by The Cure. 

(If they'd been living out one of Frank's movies. If it had been one of Gerard's, it all would have ended with an apocalyptic virus and a Megadeth cover song.)

This was real life, though, and that doesn't wrap up in neat little storylines. There was no dramatic music and no evocative closing shot, and no wedding even after it was finally, finally legal in California again. 

But there was a house tucked away in the hills with a big backyard where they threw parties. There were movies about brainwashed assassins and accidental time travel and sweet, awkward romance. There were bookshelves crowded with Frank's novels and Gerard's comics and both of their DVDs all jumbled together. 

(So it was kind of a happily ever after, after all.)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: Working Title](https://archiveofourown.org/works/548574) by [anna_unfolding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna_unfolding/pseuds/anna_unfolding)




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